Sparkling had an idea, she read in the paper there was going to be a peace rally down at the square. It would start at 6 p.m., she said to me "it's been a long time since I been on a demo. I need to get the fire back in my belly." She was referring to her adventures with the Scottish Socialists party, which is all but disbanded now. She had the memories of a G7 summit and demonstrating at Carnoustie, of low flying helicopters and running through fields. Of walking arm in arm with her comrades for world peace and chants of "stop the war!" then of running away from over zealous policing. So, it was, we were going to the world peace rally in the square. To see if Sparkling's first for excitement and fire was going to be reignited again. By virtue of being here at this time I was going as well. The schedule was simple, do the world peace rally then head over to see Rock Chick who is presently suffering from, morning, lunch time and afternoon pregnant-woman-sickness. Poor thing. Peace and a pregnant woman all in one evening.
It had been raining. Sparkling could sense, I was tagging along for the experience, personally I had my own preconceptions of what it would be like. I was open to some feisty, crowd gathering and shouting at government. Something to really rile my spirit, something of a real demo, anything less than this would be disappointing. But it had been raining and perhaps rain dictates enthusiasm, or rather the lack of enthusiasm in crowds. Rather not crowds but groups of like minded peaceful individuals. We arrived and it was ten minutes to six. In the square there were two hire vans parked. I could see speakers on stands so somewhere in front there was likely to be a microphone. The one thing lacking at this moment was the crowd. There were two women and a man there but the speakers. One woman could of been an early version of Janet Street-Porter, with teeth which conjured up an image of Goofy's lesser known sister.
Each took a hold of the microphone in turn, they encourage the last shoppers to come up and be part of International Peace Day. Except the balding man in his thirties wasn't English, he might of been Norwegian or German pronounced it as International Piss Day. It was taking the piss, the piss out of all of us. Puddles around us and a slight autumnal chill was taking hold. I was told we were beautiful people. Hmmm, I was not happy of being told everybody was beautiful because not everybody is beautiful. Some people just lacking this attribute. About ten minutes after six, a piper sounded as he walked through the town, some yards behind him was a group of people, right in the middle was a man who thought he was a Buddha look alike. The yellow table cloth wrapped round his shoulders had just been unfolded. I could tell because there were tell-tale square folds. His eyes were not oriental either. OK this is Scotland, they couldn't afford the original some it was some bloke from the pub who had read a book and was suffering from Buddha delusion or should of been taking sessions with a psychiatrist.
We stood there, Sparking hummed along to a Buddhist meditation prayer. I texted Rock Chick and said I needed medication not meditation. She advised I just leave, my response was if I left Sparkling would kill me. All in the name of peace, no I mean piss. To take the biscuit there was a Japanese man who advocated the structure of water could be changed just by thinking about it. Bloody ell, I thought, what sort of planet was this man from. No one in their right mind could surely consider that thinking about water could change its structure. This had now become farcical. A travesty of what International Peace should be about. Piss. My goat was getting up, it would of been bad to have heckled such people who thought we were all beautiful. I bit my tongue, I so wanted to should out "so that's why it's stopped raining, coz you thought about it." It didn't take too long until Sparkling had considered she'd done enough. Her sentiment was that we had been here, it was the taking part which mattered.
It was a relief to get in the car and head towards Rock's pad. Enjoyable if you had an orange robe and a fetish for bald men. I respect them but on this occasion the table cloth should of been left on the table folded up from where it had come. There at least it could collect coffee stains and bread crumbs. This is blooming Scotland mate, don't they understand; Peace should take a back seat to taking the piss out of someone who nancies about wearing a table cloth. This is the land of the hot blooded, where patriotism is dancing in unison to Flower of Scotland or the Proclaimers song, I will walk ten thousand miles. Peace is about being in your face and then screaming your head off to get to an amicable disagreement. Peace, heck, I'd had the piss taken out of me for sure.
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